 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
237
You must forget it.
He can’t say a word, he can’t even apologize.
I had to bite my lip to prevent myself from laughing.
Ought he not to treat her generously?
May I ask you a question?
2. A modal expression of nominal nature:
to be able, to be allowed, to be willing, to be going, to be anxious, etc.
You are going to attend the college at Harvard, they tell me.
Are you able to walk another two miles?
We were anxious to cooperate.
The modal part may have two modal verbs or a modal verb and a modal expression.
He may have to return.
She must be willing to come here again.
З. Аn attitudinal verb such as to like, to hate, to attempt, to expect, to hope, to intend, to mean, to
plan, to try, to have a mind, to wish, to want followed by an infinitive denote the attitude of the person
expressed by the subject to the action denoted by the infinitive.
The predicate of this type may be called a compound verbal attitudinal predicate.
He hoped to see them the next day.
I mean to find out the truth.
The compound verbal predicate
of double orientation
§ 53. The compound verbal predicate of double orientation consists of two parts. The first part is a finite
verb which denotes the attitude to, evaluation of, or comment on, the content of the sentence expressed by the
speaker or somebody not mentioned in the sentence. The second part denotes the action which is (was/will be)
performed by the person/non-person expressed by the subject.
The Gadfly seemed to have taken a dislike to her ———>It seemed (to the people) that the Gadfly had
taken a dislike to her.
Philip Bosinney was known to be a young man without fortune ———> They knew that Philip Bosinney
was a young man without fortune.
He is said to be looking for a new job. (Говорят, что он ищет новую работу)
The plane is reported to have been lost. (Сообщают, что самолет пропал)
In this case we see different orientation of the actions which are regarded from two points of view: that of
the speaker and that of the person (or non-person) expressed by the subject. .
In a number of cases semantically this type of predicate has much in common with the compound verbal
modal predicate, as in: You can’t have misunderstood me, but formally these predicates are different, because
in the compound verbal modal predicate the first component is a modal verb, whereas in the compound
predicate of double orientation it is a verb or phrase expressing attitude, evaluation, or comment. They belong
to one of the following verb groups:
1. Intransitive verbs of seeming or happening with the general meaning of evaluation in the active voice:
to seem, to appear, to prove, to turn out, to happen, to chance.